Bsa Victor 500trail
BSA VICTOR 500TRAIL
Cycle World Road Test
What Would The Guys In The Gold Star Club Do?
AH, THOSE RUGGED individualists. You see them huddled together in ever diminishing numbers, bemoaning the fate of the 500 Singles that ruled the backwoods. Gold Star. Matchbox. Ariel. Velo.
They are in their 30s or early 40s, late 20s at the youngest. They meet formally or informally, bound together by the mystique of the big four-stroke thumpers, and privy to the leisurely flow of power to the back wheel, power which seems to vary only a few rpms between full traction and a careening broadslide.
A typical member of this club is Assistant Editor Jody Nicholas. Every Tuesday night he wobbles down to the Bellboy for the informal weekly meeting of the equally informal “Gold Star Club.” The GSC has no prez, no dues, no rules, but the membership includes such ilk as “Daddy” Jim Hunter, “Hammer” Dick Hammer, Don Spargur and the legendary (at least in California) Jim Goldsmith. They even let that renegade road racer/TT rider Jack Simmons attend, even though he’s now a Duke man, and has long been associated with Matchless.
Now, the GSC doesn’t talk about how their Singles would wipe up the Jack Pine or sweep the ISDT. The big bike as an enduro weapon is a dead issue. Instead, they talk about the fun they have throwing slides on various fireroads in this world. It is a leisurely world, this world of theirs. They actually go places on their thumpers. Considering the group’s competition background, they talk little of beating anyone on their Gold Stars. The “winner,” in their frequent trips to places like the Baja Peninsula, is the guy who throws the biggest slides, wheelies the longest distance up the beach without crashing, or spits the most rocks into the faceshield of the man following him.
Specifications? Bullroar. The Gold Star has lousy specs measured by today’s standards. But you teenyboppers will discover, as you get older and your body starts to rot, that GSC-type fun is really where it’s at.
If the GSC boys moan, it’s not about the Gold Star’s fall from racing glory, nor its heaviness in tough trail riding. They only wish the BSA still manufactured parts for the damn things.
BSA, of course, has since gone on to the Victor series Singles, in an attempt to reach a broader market than that offered by GSC types. They took the concept of their unit construction 250-cc C15, made a 350, fattened that to 441cc in 1966 and have finally arrived at a 499-cc powerplant that is considerably lighter than the venerable Gold Star. This was an easy task, as the Victor was conceived as a moderate output multi-purpose engine, whereas the Gold Star had its beginnings as a high output roadster engine.
Those of you who owned a 441-cc Victor will recall that it was a neat little powerplant, flexible and powerful enough for off-road use, sturdy at the big end and a tad feeble in the gearbox. The worst part of the Victor was not the engine/ transmission unit however, but in the as-delivered frame and suspension package, hardly on a par with the light, smooth handling stuff beginning to arrive from Spain, Europe and Sweden. So the 441 Victor was ignored, not only by the mass market but by the GSC people.
Now it appears that BSA has finally built a good contemporary Single in the latest 500 Victor. The bare-bones Victor 500 motocross tested by CYCLE WORLD last spring has an excellent suspension package and weighs only 257 lb. wet. Even before the reviews hit the newsstands, dealers were beseiged with orders for the MX. And, amazingly, many of the guys doing the ordering were Gold Star freaks, looking for fun. Few of those 500MXs will actually be raced.
Then, for the mass market, BSA conceived the B50 T, or Victor 500 Trail, a slightly detuned version of the 500MX. It attempts to conform to the profitable “dual-purpose” concept created simultaneously by the Japanese and the tightening web of legislation affecting where bikes may go with what equipment.
But the attempt is only partially successful. On the one hand, the B50T handles well, looks good and has a modicum of docility. But, hamstrung by new laws requiring battery ignition and turn signals on street bikes, BSA has had to add 70 lb. to the 500 to make it street legal!
The resulting curb weight is 327 lb., a 25-lb. increase over the original street-legal 441 Victor. This weight will hardly appeal to the timid two-year rider who has been taught that weight is a bad thing. Nor will it please the well-muscled journeyman, who will instead buy the MX, install a spark arrester, and truck it far out into the boondocks where the law can’t touch him.
Nonetheless, we like the B50T very much, and only regret that it has been thrown into the horrible situation of pleasing too many factions at once. As it stands, it favors the casual dirt rider best, and, in the right hands, could be effectively used to “rock” a Gold Star rider.
Torque is abundant in the B50T, which is identical in design to the 500 MX unit—a long stroke, pushrod fourspeeder. The difference between the two is 4 bhp. The MX produces 38 bhp at 6200 rpm, while the B50T delivers only 34, having been calmed by its muffling system and a smaller 30-mm Amal concentric carburetor. The B50T thus emerges as a more tractable engine, although the MX seemed to have a broad enough power band for any use. But detuning the B50T was probably intended to guarantee its flexibility in conjunction with a wider gearbox ratio spread.
Had BSA been considering the masses more carefully, they would have done some of that detuning by lowering the B50T’s compression ratio, which is 10.0:1, the same as the MX’s. As it is, the engine does not “bite,” like legendary Singles of yore, but it does require considerable rider weight to drive it through compression and make it fire. Yes, you could become expert at using the compression release provided, but after awhile you’ll get tired of wasting time and simply want to slam it through. On level ground, it’s no problem to get the bike started, even though the kick starter ratio is slow. For the enduro rider hung up on a hillside, overwhelming 10:1 compression on a 500cc pot can be difficult.
Gearing on the B50T as delivered is on the low side, and the road goer will experience a considerable amount of high rpm vibration at 55 mph, and gnawing fear at 65 mph. A long-stroke Single is a calm thing only when it is turning over at a moderate pace. While the Victor 500 has the same stroke as the old 441, it shakes more than the 441. The 500 is, after all, slinging a bigger (84mm vs. 79mm) piston.
The provided gearing for the B50T will prove useful in off-road situations in most areas of the U.S., especially the Northwest or New England. High gear, at an overall ratio of 6.45:1, is slightly higher than the MX’s 6.90:1. The B50T’s overall low gear ratio is a wall-climbing 17.10:1, so desert riders or those who stick to fireroads would do well to hang another tooth or two on the countershaft sprocket to increase top speed. In most of our test riding, we rarely had to shift down farther than the 10.58:1 2nd gear. At any rate, the B50T’s gearing is infinitely preferable to the old 441 Victor’s standard gearing, 5.36:1 in high; it was strictly for road riding and produced a useless 93 mph in 4th, as well as a fat ratio spread in the lower three gears.
In the handling department, the B50T is encumbered only by the heavy list of DMV-approved street goodies. The same single-loop frame, with integral oil reservoir, is used for this machine as for the motocross. The other MX goodies—lightweight conical front and rear hubs, internally sprung/double damping forks, and eccentric chain tensioner on the swinging arm pivot—are there, too. And they all work well.
Now add the lighting system, which shows an odd fluctuation to dimness at about 3000 rpm; the horn; the battery; the mirror; the speedometer; the blinker signal pods out at the end of chromed stems; and a black-box silencer, which is quite effective but lacks an integral U.S.-approved spark arrester.
The first thing we would do is dump 30 lb. overboard by eliminating the turn signals, battery and horn. This is 30 lb. saved that offends nobody. Practically speaking, the bike does weigh less than the old 441, which, of these three items, possessed only the horn. Having rid yourself of 30 lb., you start realizing that the bike is tracking straight and stable over the bumps, with good front and rear damping. Yet it points to the apex readily in a sliding rough or smooth turn without trying to go one-eighty on you. Due to the footpeg position, its natural attitude overjumps is level, rather than wheel-up, so you must consciously bring the front wheel up. On the other hand, you don’t have to guard against out-of-hand wheelies, in spite of the 44/56 percent weight distribution.
Gearbox action is smooth, particularly in the first-to-second gear shifts, an improvement over the old wide-ratio Victor. The transmission also takes well to clutchless shifting, which is a good thing, because the handlebar grips are so fat and smooth and the clutch and front brake levers are so far from the bars that you may lose your grip should you attempt to clutch over rough ground. Small note: the dipstick cap on the gearbox leaks furiously around the washer.
The back brake lever is nicely designed with a long tip, close in to the cases. It fits a variety of boot sizes, yet is tucked out of the way of harm should you lay the bike down. The gearchange lever, located on the right side and operated in a l-down-3-up pattern, is short and engages the boot just behind the toes—comfortable enough.
The B50T has a passenger-length seat and rear footpegs. We tried a little double-up riding, and found the passenger seating position extremely comfortable. With two up, it becomes mandatory to put the rear spring units on the hard setting, as the rear fender is already bottoming marginally on the soft setting when the solo rider is negotiating motocross-type terrain.
Pleasant the B50T is, particularly if you are biased towards big thumpers, yet want something street legal that will run you down the block to the mudflats or haul you and your date around the trails near Lake Wisheewashee. A mass market dual purpose bike it ain’t, because it lacks a spark arrester, pussycat starting, and lightness.
So you have your choice. Buy the B50T and start stripping. Or buy the 500MX and start adding. We know what the guys in the Gold Star Club would do.
BSA
VICTOR 500TRAIL
